Sunday, February 13, 2011

I can make these results say whatever I want in order to support my opinion, study finds.

Perhaps a bit slow on the uptake, or simply due to a lack of published material, I haven't actually been able to find an article that I want to write on. I'm currently searching for a current article that details a "study finds" story with regard to video game playing and specific (violent, antisocial, non-academical etc.) behavior, most likely with adolescents. I'm looking for such a specific topic because it ties in with my senior project in psychology.

My main issue is that with articles that detail psychological studies (not just in regards to media, but across a wide range of issues) they often lack any sort of context. They are essentially printed for sensationalism's sake, with no history whatsoever about previous studies, or how this particular study compares to others like it. Specifically, studies that produce results in contrast with the established literature are often treated as "this one study disproves all the ones before it".

For the sake of summarizing my own incoherent babbling, the main point I'm trying to address is that the media's communication of scientific literature is often flawed, truncated and lacking in significant details and/or caveats. Too often a single study is used merely as a tool to support a specific talking point, whether it be that of an individual or an entire network team. Modern media don't communicate scientific literature, they bastardize it.

I just haven't quite been able to find the type of article I'm looking for.

1 comment:

  1. NICE issue. We forget that statistics are representations (we think they're truth, or a Cartesian 'clear and distinct' picture of truth. Just the WARNING that we need to remember that lens of numbers between us and the world is useful.

    Now to find the perfect, offending issue.

    ReplyDelete